Lance Armstrong's long-time attorney Bill Stapleton says he considers a letter from Floyd Landis' top sponsor suggesting that Armstrong's team hire Landis to be "a shakedown" that came after a series of "threats made over the the last three or four years" by Landis.

Australia's Michael Rogers has retained the overall lead in the Tour of California. Rogers finished third in Friday's 15,000-foot climb through the San Bernardino Mountains, the first mountain stage in the race's five-year history.

Floyd Landis ignored desperate pleas from his sponsor to avoid a public fight with Lance Armstrong, according to e-mails the seven-time Tour de France champion released in trying to prove the disgraced cyclist has "zero credibility."